6 Questions to Ask Before Migrating to a Cloud Contact Center

Will you move some or all of your contact center’s operations to the cloud this year? If so, you’re certainly not alone. Cloud migration is on the rise worldwide.

Today, over one-third (36.3%) of global organizations and 50% of North American businesses use cloud contact center solutions. And with a forecasted compound annual growth rate of 26% by 2025, it’s a time of unprecedented growth for the global cloud contact center market.

It’s easy to see why. The advantages of a cloud contact center are numerous. Whether you’re looking to improve the customer experience with faster responsiveness, scale your omnichannel service capabilities, collect more data, or increase reliability while controlling costs, cloud-based contact center solutions have it all.

But despite the benefits, moving to the cloud requires more than simply placing your order and calling it a day. First, you’ll need to consider common pitfalls and ask clever questions to ensure a cloud-based contact center ready to serve customers on day one.

How to overcome cloud center solution pitfalls

Before migrating to the cloud, you’ll need to identify your needs and capabilities to see what gaps a cloud provider can fill. Then, you’ll want to talk through your concerns with the cloud provider and develop a plan for success.

When you choose the right cloud provider, many of the common pitfalls are avoidable altogether, e.g., price isn’t everything. So look for a provider with an eye on innovation, proven experience, out-of-the-box functionality, and customizable options.

6 questions to ask before migrating to a cloud contact center platform

The following questions will help you avoid potential blind spots in your plan and provider evaluation.

1. What are your business objectives?

Before you seek providers, define your objectives to remain closely aligned with your business goals and stay on budget. Often, this results in buyers choosing to replace an aging legacy system with a new cloud contact center platform. That’s the easy part.

But to what extent do you want to create a unified communications center that integrates voice, video, bots, and workflow optimization? Beyond integrations and upsells, the best providers help you understand which systems need to connect and why.

It’s also a good idea to develop a 3-tier technology wish list: need to have, like to have, and may consider. And while you might not be able to have everything from the outset, given budget constraints, a phased approach can be prudent.

You’ll need to know:

• Why the company needs to migrate to the cloud
• What benefits you hope to achieve from the cloud migration
• What features your company needs to perform, remain secure, and succeed
• What features you’d like to add once you have the budget

2. Is your business ready to move to the cloud?

Many early performance hiccups—like latency and downtime—relate back to your internet service provider (ISP). And once your system migrates to the cloud, your ISP handles the entirety of your business’ bandwidth. So a few topics to discuss with your provider are: How many calls are handled online during peak hours now? Can you get by on compressed audio (G.729 codec), or will you need full-quality audio (G.711 codec)?

You’ll also want to make sure your contact center service provider offers robust support to help you with more complex issues like interoperability or dependencies on noncloud apps that may arise. After all, it’s all too easy to panic when your cloud call center’s live and your reputation is on the line, so ask your questions now. Prepare for the worst, hope for the best, and enjoy a smooth transition:

• Does your provider offer 24/7 support to resolve issues in real time?
• Will you have one point of contact or team support?
• What issues can support routinely handle?
• Are self-help resources available?
• What can you expect from the customer service call experience?
• Can you contact references to hear how implementation went firsthand?

It’s also crucial to find a cloud contact center software vendor that offers flexibility. If you’re not sure what WebRTC APIs are, now is a good time to learn. In the modern cloud call center, WebRTC APIs are essential to alleviate legacy pain points and seamlessly enhance customer-agent communications.

3. How is security handled?

Bad actors steal billions of consumer records each year—particularly through vulnerable channels like email. And with new privacy regulations like the California Consumer Privacy Act and General Data Protection Regulation, the risk to enterprises has never been greater. This means powerful security integrations, efficient data backup, and disaster recovery plans are necessary when moving to the cloud. Learn more about what top-level cloud security looks like here.

So it’s perfectly reasonable to ask your cloud provider:

• Do you have 24/7 monitoring?
• What happens once you detect a threat?
• What attempted attacks have you handled?
• Is insurance coverage available for an outage or data loss?

Cloud contact centers are uniquely set up to deliver security updates and solutions in real time through connectivity. And since all providers are not equal in commitment to protecting you, you must ask these questions up front before signing your contract.

4. Is the cloud contact center platform truly omnichannel?

Omnichannel contact centers are the future, as consumers expect convenient customer service across communication platforms. That means your new cloud-based contact center must keep pace with evolving technology and operate seamlessly between channels.

Learn how omnichannel contact centers differ from multichannel centers.

From voice to video, WhatsApp to SMS, you need to be able to pivot the conversation with consumer demand. The best cloud platforms share contextual details across channels, helping customers to seek resolutions without repeating the same information.

5. What reporting tools are included?

Customer service interactions offer a gold mine of data for companies—if collected and used to improve operations and deliver better outcomes. So look for a provider that offers reporting tools that can help you learn more about your customers and your agents.

Cloud contact centers may include a wide range of reporting capabilities, including:

• Real-time dashboards and historical reports
• Agent summary reports
• Agent task details
• Task duration summaries
• Task logs
• Daily traffic volumes
• Tasks by day or queue
• Agent activity state summaries
• Abandoned task reports
• Frequent customer summaries

In addition to the cloud provider’s tools, you may be able to integrate customer relationship management systems, surveys, and other reporting systems with your cloud contact center to retain full performance visibility.

6. What customer support and training is available?

A cloud contact center is only as good as its customer service representatives, no matter what type of technology you have. So you must invest in the people and tools needed to gain employee buy-in and train new users on the system.

If your vendor offers robust support, you may not need to hire new staff when you deploy a cloud-based contact center. On the other hand, on-site IT experts can handle issues quickly and help implement any necessary updates as needed.

It’s also important to note that the success of your contact center hinges on whether the employees feel supported. So a hybrid approach that empowers staff on-site and leans on backup vendor resources is a worthwhile consideration, budget permitting.

Simply put, when moving to the cloud, it’s crucial to build a culture of continuous learning. The best vendors provide dedicated resources to support a successful migration and keep employee skill sets sharp over time.

Make the switch to a cloud-based contact center with Twilio Flex

Ready for a cloud contact center solution that can bring your capabilities into the 21st century? Twilio Flex is the world’s most flexible cloud-based contact center platform, and we can have your contact center cloud up and running in days, not months.

You’ll be able to serve any customer on any platform with intelligent routing and performance monitoring capabilities. Plus, our team can help you create the ideal agent experience, adapt and change your cloud contact center to current conditions, and gain complete operational insight. Why wait? Learn more.